Teenagers were not rational, was the point, and the world was not always kind to them.
Oh isn’t that the truth! I have a running suspicion that in the teens, we’re all minor, or some major, league sociopaths, up to then many kids find themselves loved and treated as special etc, then suddenly we hit 12 or 13 and get one hell of a rude awakening, we’re not that special after all and there’s lots of ways where reality would get a kick out of showing us this, in BOLD PRINT.